CHAPTER TWO

BONFIRES AND THREATENING WORDS

The actual or potential involvement of merchants as intermediaries in heresy dissemination was bound to draw attention to laws intended to regulate them. And this in turn brought into focus the obliga- tions, whether clearly defined or implied, of bilateral treaties of com- mercial intercourse. Political leverage was an intrinsic corollary when governments extended special status to specific foreign business coter- ies. A case in point was the German Hanse. In , according to ancient charters, merchants from Hanse towns paid lower cus- toms rates than denizens and other aliens. This extraordinary advan- tage and possession of residences in London, Lynn, and Boston were enshrined in the Peace of Utrecht in 1474. The privileges were reconfirmed in February 1510, during Henry VIII’s first parliament.1 Chancellor Wolsey nevertheless could threaten to curtail or revoke liberties on almost any pretext. And he did not hesitate to do so, though usually with the aim of reducing the competitive advantage of the Steelyard men or gaining reciprocal arrangements for English merchants overseas. Repeated diplomatic discussions in the early 1520s had failed to resolve these and other trade-related issues. It was against this backdrop that controversy over Luther’s alleged heresy emerged. The mobility of individuals engaged in long-distance trade meant they were especially capable of bringing informed opin- ions and printed books from one locale to another. Inherent, too, were opportunities to exchange ideas through interaction both within and outside the merchant milieu. Regardless of the degree to which early evangelical propaganda ultimately influenced reception of the Henrician reform, during the 1520s English government and Church authorities necessarily took measures to suppress imported heterodoxy.

1 T.H. Lloyd, England and the German Hanse, 1157–1611 (Cambridge, 1991), 212–17, 251, 254–59; J.D. Fudge, Cargoes, Embargoes, and Emissaries: The Commercial and Political Interaction of England and the German Hanse, 1450–1510 (Toronto, 1995), 74–76. 76 chapter two

Penance at Paul’s Cross

The first proclamation outlawing possession of Lutheran books in England was issued from the pulpit at Paul’s Cross, within the cathe- dral precincts of old St. Paul’s, on 12 May 1521. Wolsey’s atten- dance, together with that of a distinguished retinue drawn from the high clergy and nobility, served to emphasise both the grandeur of the established Church and the gravity of the issue for a large crowd of onlookers. , , preached a lengthy sermon denouncing Luther, later printed for distribution to a wider audience by Wynkyn de Worde. A quantity of offending books was burned. Any more that had not been seized were to be surrendered to Church authorities.2 Evidently no exhaustive searches had been conducted; certainly no cells of book smugglers exposed. In the absence of an official index of titles it was a rather predictable pro- scription, consistent with the tried and true approach to suppressing Lollard manuscripts. England’s bishops necessarily had to revise and update formularies of articles used in heresy cases. Periodic forfei- tures of books were a way of staying informed of the latest innova- tions and errors in circulation. On this occasion Fisher’s sermon also served to advertise Henry’s Assertio, thus foreshadowing a strategy that for the next half decade relied heavily on waging a polemical battle with Luther.3 The ban proved less than satisfactory, and so did an attendant round of prosecutions for orchestrated by the new , John Longland, carried out in various dioceses, including London and Salisbury. Hence, the efforts of , who succeeded Richard Fitzjames as the following year, were much more focused on preventing the dissemination of printed heresies. Having spent several months on embassy in Germany prior to his appointment, he knew firsthand of the circulation of Luther’s German imprints. His correspondence

2 LP, 3/1: nos. 1210, 1234, 1273–74; Ecclesiastical Memorials, ed. J. Strype (Oxford, 1822), 1/2: 20–25; C.S. Meyer, “Henry VIII Burns Luther’s Books, 12 May 1521,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 9 (1958), 173–87. Fisher’s sermon: The English Works of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, ed. J.E.B. Mayor, Early English Text Society, extra series, 27 (1935), 311–48; STC 10894. 3 J.F. Davis, Heresy and Reformation in the south-east of England, 1520–1559 (London, 1983), 9; C.W. D’Alton, “The Suppression of Lutheran Heretics in England, 1526–1529,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 54 (2003), 230.